Participate

The Young Shakespeare Players welcomes people of all ages to the stage, with no auditions or rejections. Here’s an overview of what our young actors do as part of the program:

YSP actors perform full-length Shakespeare plays (or, in our Workshops, uncut scenes and speeches from many of Shakespeare’s best-loved works). In recent years we have added some of G.B. Shaw’s masterpieces and have incorporated works of Dickens, Thurber, and even Sid Caesar!

YSP’s young actors perform with complete understanding. Key to the actors’ memorizing and understanding what they are saying is a unique system of audiotapes that the directors have prepared over the past 35 years.

YSP actors help direct their counterparts. A unique and highly effective feature of the program is its multiple-cast rehearsals. When several casts rehearse together, one cast is onstage while the other actors help “direct” by watching and listening with extraordinary care, and commenting constructively on the performance.

YSP actors take part in every phase of the program. Every YSP performer also has “tech-crew” roles for other counterpart casts—a feature that builds awareness and support of the players for one another and for the entire production process.